


Trainspotting

by sanctum_c



Series: Some Kinda Lady 2016 [3]
Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: F/M, Hobbies, Reading, trainspotting - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:14:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27375529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctum_c/pseuds/sanctum_c
Summary: Barret finally gets a chance to indulge a hobby.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Barret Wallace
Series: Some Kinda Lady 2016 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1999702
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Trainspotting

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Hobbies"

"I can't believe it's finally happening!" Barret said for perhaps the fourth time since they took position on the bench overlooking the tracks. He was far too excited to even contemplate concentrating on his book - a thoroughly unnecessary precautionary measure given the possibility of delays to the announced timetable.

Tifa smiled and noted her current page before looking up at him. "You've been talking about nothing else for the last week," she said, leaning her head against his shoulder as she resumed reading.

"Been a long time since any of the trains were running. But now..."

Tifa nodded. In the post-Mako world, they took energy where they could find it. Coal was an environmental disaster - this was well recorded - but there were precious few immediate alternate options available to them. They would come in time - people were working on them urgently with Reeve and Cid's assistance. And it was not as if anyone wanted to use coal for power generation; while mining had now resumed, coal-fired power-plant infrastructure was decades out of date and perilously unsafe.

But power was not the fuel's only use. The isolated communities around the world could do with better transport links; former roads were long lost under grass and trees as nature subsumed the work of decades past. The Planet tried for the rails too - and that was when Barret stepped in to ensure they stayed in use and gleaming. All part of the fight that brought them here and the hopefully successful operation of the Corel train-line. A restored rail link from deep in the Corel mountains to the Gold Saucer entrance. From there workers would extend the rails and cross across the desert, branching the track in the centre. One strand to Costa del Sol, one to the regenerated and rebuilt Gongaga. Another link would eventually chain Cosmo Canyon and Nibelhim together. Reeve had even grander schemes for the future; a track to cross Mount Nibel and down to Rocket Town. And maybe one day a bridge across the open sea to connect to Wutai. "When I was younger I really wanted to drive the trains," Barret murmured.

"You did?" Tifa glanced up and blinked up at him. “First time you mentioned that.”

"Yeah, well, I was just a kid. Always dreamed of being the one to make it whistle," Barret said in a wistful tone.

"What made you change your mind?"

"Bunch of things I guess. My size was a big one. I was always a big kid-" He grinned. "Don't know if you've ever seen the cab of a train, but they're kinda pokey. And driving the train was something all the kids wanted to do. We used to watch 'em as they went down from the mines into town. Every kid be a train driver. But the train wouldn't go unless someone got the coal." Barret gazed on the tracks at the point they rounded the hillside.

"So you wanted to help out like that?" Tifa asked. “Help power the train?"

"Yeah." Barret nodded. "I still went and looked at them whenever I got the chance. But the coal I dug out of the hills - some of it went to the power plant, and some of it went to the trains. Every-time one went past, I knew I was the one who helped it get there." He looked a bit sheepish. "Made a note of every one of them."

"I thought there was only one?" Tifa blinked. More to trains and coal mining then she expected.

"One line, but eight trains. Can't just expect the same one to go back and forth everyday. Things wear out. So they had eight trains on rotation. Each of them different, all of them numbered."

"Huh," Tifa said. "So they were numbered one to eight?"

"Not quite like that. You see-" A distant whistle sounded and Barret sat up straighter.

"That it?"

"That's it," Barret said, his lips already curling into a smile. A plume of smoke shot up from an unseen object heading towards them, hidden for now by the low hills. Finally she would see the train Avalanche had been messing around on while she was with Cloud in Mideel; the one they stopped from slamming into North Corel at high speed.

The rhythmic chugging of the unseen force grew louder and louder; the train rounded the bend and shot along the track, thick black smoke streaming in it's wake. The whistle again pierced the air so loudly she winced, but Barret was on his feet staring at the locomotive as it barrelled past them and down the track. He fumbled in his pocket for a stained, grubby notebook that had seen far better days. Flipping over a few pages, he made a mark next to a numbered sequence and scribbled in the current date. Tifa peered at the page trying to make sense of the neat tables and the marks in each. "Is that-?"

"Yep," Barret grinned. "First train I ever saw - all over again." Tifa patted his arm and returned to her book as her partner watched the train vanish into the distance.


End file.
